08:14 BST

  It was another rather warm night, and this morning seemed to start at 24° C on my thermometers. Today the temperature may reach 32° C, and with 33° C possible. The night should start very warm and sticky, but it is all change during the night. Tomorrow at 6am it may be raining, and and 19° C. The rain may continue, although it will probably just be quite light rain, until early afternoon when we should see sunny spells for several hours, and full sunshine for the last few hours of daylight. Tomorrow's maximum may be just 23° C.

  Yesterday started off as sort of exciting, but later in the afternoon it just seemed too hot and sticky to raise any enthusiasm to do that much. Apart from one still unfinished job, it didn't matter that I just indulged in keeping hydrated and cool in the afternoon (as recommended by several very boring TV doctors).

  The first important thing for yesterday was to give a blood sample for a blood test at 11:35am. I kept thinking it was at 11:53am, and I had to double check to make sure I was not late. Prior to that I made sure I was fully scrubbed and I washed and conditioned my hair as well. Of course by the time I got to the Vampires nest I was hot and sweaty. It was only a 5 and a bit minute walk, but I should have had time to take it a bit slower.


  It was pleasing that I had managed an average speed of 2.767mph, there and back, and I think I was a bit slower coming home. That means the walk to the surgery would have been even faster. No wonder I was getting hot and sweaty, but that is about all. I didn't seem to have any angina type pains, and I was not getting too short of breath when I arrived.

  I admit I did wait about 30 seconds before I went up the stairs to where the vampires live. That was actually a bad mistake because it meant I ended up following a big fat woman who could barely make it up the stairs, and worst of all was that she really stank. I stood up on the other side of the waiting room rather than sit anywhere near her.

  It was unusual that my personal vampire (aka phlebotomist) was a man. He may have been the same man who helped the "nurse" (or healthcare worker as I later learned) take the blood samples for my usual diabetic blood checks at the beginning of last month. One hint that it was the same man was that he opted to use a butterfly needle. Those needles are so fine that I didn't even feel him slide the needle in. I wondered what he was doing when I looked down, and he already had almost filled the test tube. I had not even realised he had started !

  I said I tried to walk home a bit slower than I had walked to the surgery. I am not just how slow I managed to walk because I was trying to get home before the postman called. He was due to deliver my newest blood glucose meter to me. It was another of my orders from Aliexpress, and was coming all the way from China. There was no actual need to rush because it may have been up to an hour after I got home that the postman arrived.

  One thing I had not considered initially, although I did think about it after making the order, was that the new meter was probably a Chinese model, and I might not understand any of it. Once it arrived, I quickly opened the box, and had my first look at it for real. The outside of the box (picture on the left) was completely in Chinese, but it did look like the meter itself had an English display.

  The meter itself is a Contour Plus model, and uses a slightly different test strip to my old Contour meter. I also think it looks nicer in black than my old version. being other wise so similar I hoped that the info for the old meter might work on the new meter. The flaw in that argument is that I don't seem to have the instruction booklet for the old meter now !

   Fortunately I knew some basics, and found that setting the time and date, plus a few other parameters was very straight forward. Before I had set the correct date and time I could not resist doing a quick test. It was only a few hours after my breakfast, and that would make for a higher reading. The reading I got was 8.4mmol/l, and that seemed very reasonable. I could not wait (but obviously did wait) to try it out this morning, and compare it with the other two meters that I trust.

  I allowed a little time to cool down before putting on my outdoor clothes again, and going out shopping in Tesco. This morning I discovered that what I thought was a disaster proved not to be.... I had found some reduced price sandwiches in Tesco, and bought three packs that I had for my lunch. That was quite a gamble because many Tesco (and others) sandwiches can contain quite a lot of sugar, and calories too.

  I bought even more packets of instant noodles. On this occasion I went for the bigger packets - typically around 100gm a packet, and so less than two 60 or 70gm packets - the latter being my usual amount for breakfast. I bought a couple of ready meals as well. Most of the weight I had to lug home was drinks. I bought two 2l bottles of Diet Coke, and made one small mistake when I bought a 6 pack of bottled water.

  The mistake was accidently buying 500ml bottles of water that did not have screw caps. That makes it a little awkward to refill them with tap water - it can be done easily enough, but about half the water used does not go in the bottle. I particularly wanted a few 500ml bottles because they are a convenient size to take with me if I am out on a walk. They will fit inside a camera case.

  Once I had stuffed myself with the sandwiches I didn't feel like doing much more than laying on my bed, with a fan blowing at me, while I quietly read. I only intended to rest for long enough to let my lunch go down, but it seemed the heat sapped any desires to do more. Apart from having lunch, I think I only did one other thing for the rest of the day. That one thing was to pay off one of my credit cards - the one I use for almost all buying now. It was quite a lot, and although I knew it represented most of my expenditure for the month, I still felt another lie down was a good idea.

  After what seemed quite a big, and none too healthy lunch, I decided to keep dinner as small and light as possible. Fortunately I had one thing ready to cook that I had bought from Tesco when I was in there last week. It was fish coated in flavoured breadcrumbs. I suspect the fish was pollock because it was fairly tasteless. The "breadcrumb coating" was more akin to pastry. The description sounded wonderful, but I think I had doubts before I had even opened the packet. There was nothing wrong with it, but nothing good either. I did have a small chunk of cheese to take the lack of taste away.

  After the usual two Star Treks, Voyager and Deep Space Nine, there seemed no reason to stay up, and I took my book to bed. I feel fairly sure I was asleep before it was dark outside. I half expected not to be able to sleep because it seemed so hot and humid, but I underestimated myself. I remember one short period of insomnia around midnight. That was mostly to do with having to sort out my pillows, and the towel on top that was soaking up sweat. I may have peed less last night because it was very apparent I was losing lots of fluid by way of sweat.

  Even at 7:44am this morning it was still 29.4° C inside my bedroom, and the temperature outside was starting to climb. I think the outside thermometer was getting some reflected sunlight on it, and the reading of 26.2° C was probably a few degrees too high, but maybe only 3 or 4 degrees too high. It was as warm outside as the expected peak for tomorrow ! Also note the down pointing arrow - meaning the atmospheric pressure is dropping. Maybe the forecast for rain is a bit premature right now, but it is forecast for tomorrow.

  I have a feeling that I might be constipated today. At least nothing has happened yet today. When I got up I had a decent pee, and I did pass some wind, but nothing solid. When I got on the scales I was happy to see that maybe my super light dinner had worked even if my excess lunch could have made things worse. My weight was 300gm less than yesterday, and I was back to dark blue (from light blue) for my colour coded weight spreadsheet entry.


  After the scales I was ready to check my blood glucose level. Not only that but it was the first day of retirement for the cranky Sinocare meter, and first official day of using the Contour Plus meter. The old Contour meter read 7.3mmol/l - a very good reading. The GlucoRX meter read a little higher at 7.7mmol/l. The new Contour Plus meter read exactly the same as the old Contour meter - 7.3mmol/l. This is an excellent start for July. I wonder how many days it will be before I ruin it all ?

  In an ideal world I would be going for a long walk today. It would be good for me, but three things suggest it may not happen. Two of those things are good weight and good blood glucose. Both could be better, but there is no urgent need to improve on them. Another thing is that I feel constipated as I write this. Maybe, as is often the case, I will end up having a poo shortly before midday. It is a stupid time at any time, but even more stupid on a day like today. I would prefer to go out before the temperature peaks so I can acclimatise to it a bit.

  What I will probably do instead of a long walk is a short walk. If nothing else, I could do with a big triple pack of kitchen paper from Poundstretcher, and I've never walked out of there before carrying just one single item. I'll probably buy a selection of stuff - including some sugar free fizzy drinks if they have had anything new come in since I was last in there. It is possible, even if not terribly likely, that I might get the strimmer out and give the back garden another "haircut".